That morning, when John Storm went to take seven-o'clock celebration,
the knocker-up with his long stick had not yet finished his rounds
in the courts and alleys about the church, but the costers with their
barrows and donkeys, their wives and their children, were making an
early start for Epsom. There were many communicants, and it was eight
o'clock before he returned to his rooms. By that time the postman had
made his first delivery and there was a letter from the Prime Minister.
“Come to Downing Street as soon as this reaches you. I must see you
immediately.”
He ate his breakfast of milk and brown bread, said “Good-bye, Brother
Andrew, I shall be back for evening service,” whistled to the dog, and
set out into the streets. But a sort of superstitious fear had taken
hold of him, as if an event of supreme importance in his life was
impending, and before answering his uncle's summons he made a round
of the buildings in the vicinity which were devoted to the work of his
mission. His first visit was to the school. The children had assembled,
and they were being marshalled in order by the Sisters and prepared for
their hymn and prayer.
“Good-morning, Father.”
“Good-morning, children.”
Many of them had presents for him--one a flower, another a biscuit,
another a marble, and yet another an old Christmas card. “God bless
them, and protect them!” he thought, and he left the school with a full
heart.
His last visit was to the men's shelter which he had established under
the management of his former “organ man,” Mr. Jupe. It was a bare place,
a shed which had been a stable and was now floored and ceiled. Beds
resembling the bunks in the foc's'le of a ship lined the walls. When
these were full the lodgers lay on the ground. A blanket only was
provided. The men slept in their clothes, but rolled up their coats for
pillows. There was a stove where they might cook their food if they had
money to buy any. A ha'p'orth of tea and sugar mixed, a ha'p'orth of
bread, and a ha'p'orth of butter made a royal feast.
Going through the square in which his church stood he passed a smart gig
at the door of a public-house that occupied the corner of a street. The
publican in holiday clothes was stepping up to the driver's seat, and
a young soldier, smoking a cigarette, was taking the place by his side.
“Morning, Father, can you tip us the winner?” said the publican with a
grin, while the soldier, with an impudent smile, cried “Ta-ta” over his
shoulder to the second story of a tenement house, where a young woman
with a bloated and serious face and a head mopped up in curl-papers was
looking down from an open window.
It was nine o'clock when John Storm reached the Prime Minister's house.
A small crowd of people had followed him to the door. “His lordship
is waiting for you in the garden, sir,” said the footman, and John was
conducted to the back.
In a shady little inclosure between Downing Street and the Horse Guards
Parade the Prime Minister was pacing to and fro. His head was bent, his
step was heavy, he looked harassed and depressed. At sight of John's
monkish habit he started with surprise and faltered uneasily. But
presently, sitting by John's side on a seat under a tree, and keeping
his eyes away from him, he resumed their old relations and said:
“I sent for you, my boy, to warn you and counsel you. You must give up
this crusade. It is a public danger, and God knows what harm may come
of it! Don't suppose I do not sympathize with you. I do--to a certain
extent. And don't think I charge you with all the follies of this
ridiculous distemper. I have followed you and watched you, and I know
that ninety-nine hundredths of this madness is not yours. But in the eye
of the public you are responsible for the whole of it, and that is the
way of the world always. Enthusiasm is a good thing, my boy; it is the
rainbow in the heaven of youth, but it may go too far. It may be hurtful
to the man who nourishes it and dangerous to society. The world classes
it with lunacy and love and so forth among the nervous accidents of
life; and the humdrum healthy-minded herd always call that man a fool
and a weakling or else a fanatic and a madman, in whom the grand errors
of human nature are due to an effort--may I not say, a vain effort?--to
live up to a great ideal.” There were nervous twitchings over the
muscles of John's face. “Come, now, come, for the sake of peace and
tranquillity, lest there should be disorder and even death, let this
matter rest. Think, my boy, think, we are as much concerned for the
world's welfare as you can be, and we have higher claims and heavier
responsibilities. I can not raise a hand to help you, John. In the
nature of things I can not defend you. I sent for you because--because
you are your mother's son. Don't cast on me a heavier burden than I can
bear. Save yourself and spare me.”
“What do you wish me to do, uncle?”
“Leave London immediately and stay away until this tumult has settled
down.”
“Ah, that is impossible, sir.”
“Impossible?”
“Quite impossible, and though I did not make these predictions about
the destruction of London, yet I believe we are on the eve of a great
change.”
“You do?”
“Yes, and if you had not sent for me I should have called on you, to ask
you to set aside a day for public prayer that God may in his mercy
avert the calamity that is coming or direct it to the salvation of his
servants. The morality of the nation is on the decline, uncle, and
when morality is lacking the end is not far off. England is given up
to idleness, pomp, dissolute practices, and pleasure--pleasure, always
pleasure. The vice of intemperance, the mania for gambling, these are
the vultures that are consuming the vitals of our people. Look at the
luxury of the country--a ludicrous travesty of national greatness!
Look at the tastes and habits of our age--the deadliest enemies of true
religion! And then look at the price we are paying in what the devil
calls 'the priestesses of society' for the tranquillity of the demon of
lust!”
“But my boy, my dear boy----”
“Oh, yes, uncle, yes, I know, I know, many humanitarian schemes are
afloat and we think we are not indifferent to the condition of the poor.
But contrast the toiling women of East London with the idlers of Hyde
Park in a London season. Other nations have professed well with their
lips while their hearts have been set on wealth and pleasure. And they
have fallen! Yes, sir, in ancient Asia as well as in modern Europe they
have always fallen. And unless we unglue ourselves from the vanities
which imperil our existence we shall fall too. The lust of pleasure and
the lust of wealth bring their own revenges. In the nation as well as
the individual the Almighty destroys them as of old.”
“True--true!”
“Then how can I hold my peace or run away while it is the duty of
Christians, of patriots, to cry out against this danger? On the soul of
every one of us the duty rests, and who am I that I should escape from
it? Oh, if the Church only realized her responsibility, if she only kept
her eyes open----”
“She has powerful reasons for keeping them closed, my son,” said the
Minister, “and always will have until the Establishment is done away
with. It is coming to that some day, but meantime have a care. The
clergy are not your friends, John. Statesmen know too well the clerical
cruelty which shelters itself behind the secular arm. It is an old
story, I think, and you may find instances of that also in your ancient
Palestine. But beware, my boy, beware----”
“'Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. Ye know that it hated
me before it hated you.'”
The exaltation of John's manner was increasing, and again the Prime
Minister became uneasy, as if fearing that the young monk by his side
would ask him next to kneel and pray.
“Ah, well,” he said, rising, “I suppose there is no help for it, and
matters must take their own course.” Then he broke into other subjects,
talked of his brother, John's father, whom he had lately heard from. His
health was failing, he could not last very long; a letter from his son
now might make all things well.
John was silent, his head was down, but the Prime Minister could see
that his words took no effect. Then his bleak old face smiled a wintry
smile as he said:
“But you are not mending much in one way, my boy. Do you know you've
never once been here since the day you came to tell me you were to be
married, and intended to follow in the footsteps of Father Damien?”
John flinched, and the muscles of his face twitched nervously again.
“That was an impossible enterprise, John. No wonder the lady couldn't
suffer you to follow it. But she might have allowed you to see a lonely
old kinsman for all that.” John's pale face was breaking, and his breath
was coming fast. “Well, well,” taking his arm, “I'm not reproaching you,
John. There are passions of the soul which eat up all the rest, I know
that quite well, and when a man is under the sway of them he has neither
father nor uncle, neither kith nor kin. Good-bye! ... Ah, this way
out--this way.”
The footman had stepped up to the Minister and whispered something about
a crowd in front of the house, and John was passed out of the garden by
the back door into the park.
Three hours afterward the frequenters of Epsom racecourse saw a man in
a black cassock get up into an unoccupied wagonette and make ready to
speak. He was on the breast of “The Hill,” directly facing the Grand
Stand, in a close pack of carriages, four-in-hands, landaus, and
hansoms, filled with gaily dressed women in pink and yellow costumes,
drinking champagne and eating sandwiches, and being waited upon by
footmen in livery. It was the interval between two events of the race
meeting, and beyond the labyrinth of vehicles there was a line of
betting men in outer garments of blue silk and green alpaca, standing
on stools under huge umbrellas and calling the odds to motley crowds of
sweltering people on foot.
“Men and women,” he began, and five thousand faces seemed to rise at the
sound of his voice. The bookmakers kept up their nasal cries of “I lay
on the field!” “Five to-one bar one!” But the crowd turned and deserted
them. “It's the Father,” “Father Storm,” the people said, with laughter
and chuckling, loose jests and some swearing, but they came up to him
with one accord until the space about, him, as far as to the roadway by
which carriages climbed the hill, was an unbroken pavement of rippling
faces.
“Good old Father!” and then laughter. “What abart the end of the world,
old gel?” and then references to “the petticoats” and more laughter.
“'Ere, I'll 'ave five bob each way, Resurrection,” and shrieks of wilder
laughter still.
The preacher stood for some moments silent and unshaken. Then the quiet
dignity of the man and the love of fair play in the crowd secured him a
hearing. He began amid general silence:
“I don't know if it is contrary to regulations to stand here to speak,
but I am risking that for the urgency of the hour and message. Men and
women, you are here under false pretences. You pretend to yourselves and
to each other that you have come out of a love of sport, but you have
not done so, and you know it. Sport is a plausible pleasure; to love
horses and take delight in their fleetness is a pardonable vanity, but
you are here to practise an unpardonable vice. You have come to
gamble, and your gambling is attended by every form of intemperance and
immorality. I am not afraid to tell you so, for God has laid upon me a
plain message, and I intend to do my duty. These race-courses are not
for horse-racing, but for reservoirs of avarice and drunkenness and
prostitution. Don't think”--he was looking straight into the painted
faces of the women in pink and yellow, who were trying to smile and
look amused--“don't think I am going to abuse the unhappy girls who are
forced by a corrupt civilization to live by their looks. They are my
friends, and half my own life is spent among them. I have known some
of them in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity, and when I think of what
they have suffered from men I feel ashamed that I am a man. But, my
sisters, for you, too, I have an urgent message. It is full summer with
you now, as you sit here in your gay clothes on this bright day; but
the winter is coming for every one of you, when there will be no more
sunshine, no more luxury and pleasure and flattery, and when the miry
wallowers in troughs and stys, who are now taking the best years of your
lives from you----”
“Helloa there! Whoop! Tarara-ra-ra-rara!”
A four-in-hand coach was dashing headlong up the hill amid clouds of
dust, the rattling of wheels, the shouts of the driver and the blasts of
the horn, and the people who covered the roadway were surging forward to
make room for it.
“It's Gloria!” said everybody, looking up at the occupants of the coach
and recognising one of them.
The spell of the preacher was broken. He paused and turned his head and
saw Glory. She was sitting tall and bright and gay on the box-seat by
the side of Drake; the rays of the sun were on her and she was smiling
up into his face.
The preacher began again, then faltered, and then stopped. A bell at the
Grand Stand was ringing. “Numbers goin' up,” said everybody, and before
any one could be conscious of what was happening, John Storm was only a
cipher in the throng, and the crowd was melting away.